The early Irish monks held a delightful notion of the "place of resurrection." Setting off from their native shores, driven by some inner compulsion to wander, they would seek the place where they would die, or better, and more poetically, the place of their resurrection. In some stories, the monk would instruct friends to carry his body back to the place of resurrection, if he should die away from it—and if not his body, then his bones in years to come! By all accounts the place of resurrection is that place on planet earth where you feel the most at home, the most peaceful, the most "right."
I watched recently a documentary on the life of Alfred Wainwright (1907-1991). AW's legacy was his mapping all the trails and features of the English Lake District in seven hand written and beautifully drawn volumes (as well as dozens of other books). He made his first trip to the Lakes in 1930 when he was 23 and was awestruck by the beauty he found at Orrest Head. In the documentary, during an interview a few years before he died, AW describes the "rightness" he found at Orrest Head and said it was here his ashes were to be scattered. After his death his wife made the pilgrimage and carried out his wish. For AW, Orrest Head was his place of resurrection.
I have for some time know my own place of resurrection. It is the bay at Castlehead Rocks on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. When our kids were little we spent many happy days exploring the rocks, sitting on the beach (often huddled against the wind), and watching the seals bobbing up and down in the water. Jane feels the same way about this little known bay. Most visitors to the island stay near the car park, houses and priory, perhaps walking the mile or so to the castle. This week we walked eight miles around the island, resting on the rocks of the bay, enjoying a sandwich as we watched the seals playing not fifty yards off shore. We counted over fifty seals. That evening we decided that here was where we want our ashes sprinkled when we pass, for here is our place of resurrection. Our stay on the island has ever only been temporary. But the sense of belonging has only grown stronger over the years. Like the Celtic monks before us, we have known life as exile, far away from the place of resurrection, returning when we can, and one day finally to return.
Last week, my brother-in-law Steve passed away, after a struggle with cancer. I am grateful to have known Steve. He was a good man. I shall miss him. His passing brought home to me again my own mortality, my own temporary stay at the inn.
I recently discovered the Jesus Sutras ... aphorisms from seventh century China—a delightful mixture of Christian, Daoist and Buddhist emphases. The Sutras were given birth when early Christians traveled east and synthesized their understandings with locally held ideas and practices. This process was not dissimilar to that which happened when early Christians traveled west and synthesized Christian ideas with Celtic paganism.
The result of a dialectic—what happens when two "something's" clash—is a creative "new something," more helpful that either something on its own. (Perhaps this was Hegel's most important insight.) The Sutras resonate with me as I find myself increasing caught in the flux of Christianity, Daoism and Buddhism.
One of the passages in the Sutras is called the "Ten Methods for meditating on the world." Here's the first two:
The first method is to realize that as soon as people are born they begin to grow old and that eventually they die. The world is like an inn where we stay temporarily. None of the beds or furniture are really yours. We will all be gone soon, for no one can stay long in an inn.
The second is to observe how our friends and loved ones are taken from us just as leaves fall from a tree. Wind and winter arrive and the leaves are gone.
Such is the natural cycle. Happy the person who makes peace with nature and learns to flow with her tides, rather than foolishly struggling against the flow.
+Ab. Andy.
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